NON-MENTAL METAPHORS
COPYRIGHT: John Barnden, 1997-present.
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NON-MENTAL METAPHORS
There was no cosiness in the breakfast-room. The lights were not shaded,
... and their (* COLD BLAZE PRESENTED AN ATMOSPHERE OF HYGIENIC CHILL *)
which even the bright fire could not dispel.
[[Text: p.96]]
{NB: mixing of cold with blazing, and of light being cold with "atmosphere" being cold}
[a (* problem *) about the regulation of banking in Europe] seems to have been
(* KICKED RIGHT OVER THE LONG GRASS INTO THE JUNKYARD DOWN THE ROAD[.]*)
[[Speech: source]]
{creative elaboration of the conventional metaphor about kicking a
problem into the long grass}
[The Dean] Mr. Deighton-Clerk's (* GAZE WENT SLOWLY UP TO THE CEILING *)
[where there were depictions of the twelve signs of the zodiac], as if
(* SEEKING COMFORT IN HIS OWN PRIVATE ASTROLOGICAL HEAVEN.*) Comfort came to
him in some measure as (* HIS EYE MOVED FROM __Cancer__ TO THE TAUT FORM OF
__Sagittarius__.*) ... At this moment (* THE DEAN'S EYE, VOYAGING STILL
AMONG HIS RAFTERS, RESTED ON __Aquarius__,*) ...
[[Text: source p.39]]
{Grammar in first sentence is somewhat awry. It seems author means the
Dean is seeking comfort, not the gaze.}
{Personification of the eye mixed with the celing as heaven.}
(* THE ROAD TO DOWNING STREET RUNS THROUGH CORBY.*)
[[Speech: source]]
{Metaphorical road standaing for the time course of political fortunes,
but appealing to real-world point that places are connected by
roads. Also a metonymy on Downing Street, to refer to being the party in
power in the UK.}
We do not have a (* CHOCOLATE ARMY [that] FADES AWAY *) at the first sign
of trouble.
[[Speech: source]]
{cf. chocolate teapots. NB: chocolate usually melts, not "fades", so
there could be serial mixing, with melting being metaphorical viewed as
fading? Or: parallel mixing with army simultaneously viewed as meltable
and as fading?}
But on 1st October 2009, they moved across Parliament Square, (* TAKING
THEIR POWERS WITH THEM,*) to become the first Supreme Court justices
[[Text source]]
I'll try to (* LOOP IT UP.*)
[[Speech: source]]
{"It" refers to final phase of an academic lecture.}
From today, the entire (* POLAR ICE-CAP *..) of Catholic sexual morality has
started to (..* MELT).
[[Speech: source]]
The topic of the day was police brutality, but the jammed
auditorium (* RANG WITH WIDER FRUSTRATIONS.*)
[[Text: source]]
{Mixing of metonymy from frustrations to utterances and metaphor of
utterances constituting a ringing noise (?) .}
This is a crystal-clear example of what could be called corporate
debasement of the academy and its role.
[NP]
(* IT IS NOT JUST THE TAIL
BUT THE DIRTY TIP OF THE TAIL WAGGING THE DOG.*) I'm certain most
academics will treat this with the contempt it deserves.
[[Text:
source]]
And although Hanks can be pleasant company and is highly talented, there
is an (* UNDERBELLY TO HIS PAST.*)
[[Text:
source]]
{Probably metonymy from PAST to his life at that time, plus some
metaphor relating to an animal.}
... I was entrusted with the road map, which (* looked like THE PLAN FOR
THE INTESTINES OF A GIANT INSECT,*)
[[Text:
source p.172]]
{NB: interesting simile in that the source is obscure and
counterfactual:
(a) we probably don't have a clear idea of what the intestines of an
insect are like; (b) it's unlear why an *insect* is appealed to at all,
rather than a person; (c) the giantness has unclear significance; (d)
intestines wouldn't have a plan anyway. The insectness may have an
evaluative effect (disgust, horror).}
But (* I could see in my mind's eye *) the placid winding streets (ways,
lanes, drives) of Fernwood (* LEADING BACK FARTHER AND FARTHER INTO THE
DIMNESS OF THE PAST *) I had already spent there, ...
[[Text:
source p.172]]
{TIME AS LANDSCAPE, but in this case a real landscape he is receding
from. Moreover, the landscape is the one he's seeing in his mind's eye. }
... the woman I called "Nada" ... was just (* A LIAR. SHE CHEATED all
the time.*)
[[Text:
source p.214]]
{She's a liar in that, because of her writing, previously unknown to the
narrator, it's as if she had pretended to be someone she wasn't.}
We are accustomed to people (* EXISTING IN ORBIT AROUND US,*..) and we
dread thinking of their deaths because of (..* THE SLIGHT TUG WE WILL
FEEL WHEN THEIR PRESENCE IS GONE---WE'LL BE DRAWN OUT CLOSER TO THE
FRIGIDITY OF DARKNESS, SPACE, death.*..) We are accustomed to (..* THESE
SMALLER PLANETS ALWAYS SHOWING THE SAME SIDES TO US,*) familiar,
predictable, secure, sound, sane, accommodating, but ...
[[Text:
source p.215]]
Croisset in winter: thick fog, perfect silence, (* PERFECT
EMPTINESS.*..) The (..* RICH NOTHINGNESS *) of the scene of writing is
often ritually invoked in Flaubert's letters. `(* IT'S LIKE BEING INSIDE
AN ENORMOUS MILK-WHITE TOMB,*)' he said.
[[Text:
source p.xvii]]
A church clock struck once, slowly, (* LIKE A VOICE CALLING OUT TO HIM.*)
[[Text:
source p.56]]
To bring this about he would have to (* CONQUER Fate;*) ...
[[Text:
source p.77]]
That was (* A STORM IN AN EGGCUP *..) -- it didn't even make (..* THE SIZE OF A TEACUP.*)
[[Speech: source]]
{Allusion to idiom "storm in a teacup", further exaggerating the size contrast.}
Let me put that differently. It isn't that I don't like cricket, it's
that (* CRICKET DOESN'T LIKE ME.*)
[[Text: source]]
{INANIMATE ENTITY AS PERSON}
And I was the wrong religion to field. A cricket ball coming at you at a
hundred miles an hour is (* like AN EXOCET.*) In my faith it is forbidden to
knowingly (* put yourself IN THE LINE OF FIRE.*)[NP]
[[Text: source]]
{Physical simile as part of discourse-extended metaphor, conforming to
SPORT AS WAR.}
(* Yesterday WAS CHRISTMAS DAY *) for all the editors of tabloid
newspapers.
{Alluding to especially interesting political events.}
[[Speech: BBC Radio 4, "Today" programme, 4 November 2005]]
{copular metaphor with semantically very close target and source}
Dame Patricia Hodgson ... will ... lambast micromanagement and (*
CREEPING *..) bureaucracy [in universities] which she estimates is costing £250m a year.
[NP]
She will accuse the funding council Hefce and similar bodies in
Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland of diverting precious resources by
trying to micromanage universities.
[NP] ...
"I've been appalled ... by the sector's apparent acceptance of (..* CREEPING *)
intervention; and by its capacity to respond to red tape (* in spades.*)"
[[Text: source]]
{ABSTRACT DEVELOPMENT AS ANIMATE BEING}
Dame Patricia ... says that universities are
responding to interference from Hefce by (*"GOLD-PLATING"*) their response.
[NP]
"... I've
been appalled ... by the sector's apparent acceptance of (* creeping *)
intervention; and by its capacity to respond to red tape (* in spades.*)
[NP]
In other words, to (* GOLD-PLATE *) its response to bureaucracy and
centralisation," she will say.
[[Text: source]]
{QUALITY AS RICHNESS}
{NB: metaphoricity signal "in other words". But the quote marks round
the first use of "gold-plating" could be just for quotation, rather than
metaphoricity signalling.}
Will Plymouth [in Monserrat, after destruction by a volcanic eruption]
(* RISE PHOENIX-LIKE *) from the fire? ...
Did the (* RUMBLINGS [before the destruction] REACH YOU *) in America?
{"rumblings" not meant literally in the context; refers to psychological/social
effects}
[[Speech: source]]
{First sentence: INANIMATE PHYSICAL OBJECT AS ANIMATE BEING with
BUILDING ACTIVITY AS VERTICAL MOVEMENT.
The weather had suddenly warmed and was threatening rain, and we
flew between colossal black thunderheads lighting up (* WITH VIOLENT
THOUGHTS.*) The storm loudly cracked and flashed as we sped through (* WHAT
SEEMED THE MIDDLE OF A FEUD.*)
[[Text: source p.323]]
{STORM AS BATTLING/THOUGHTS}
These guys don't just defeat opponents they (* DESTROY
THEM PIECE BY BLOODY PIECE[.]*)
[[Text: source]]
{SPORTS DEFEAT AS BODY DISTINTEGRATION}
{perhaps reanalyzable as hyperbole}
Here's (* LICHTENSTEIN AS MAGRITTE *)
[[Speech: source]]
{explicit X AS ANOTHER X metaphorical view}
[The weather is] (* SETTLING INTO a drier FRAME OF MIND[.]*)
[[Speech: source]]
{WEATHER AS PERSON mixed with MENTAL PROCESS AS PHYSICAL MOVEMENT}
(* I DON'T KNOW HOW WE WOULD HAVE EXTRICATED OURSELVES FROM THE
ESCALATING INSULTS *) if we hadn't been interrupted by the buzzer
outside my front door.
[[Text: source p.226]]
{UTTERANCE AS EXTERNAL PHYSICAL OBJECT}
... (* THE FURNITURE, OVER-AWED BY THE BED, WAS DIFFIDENT *) and shabby.
[[Text: source p.263]]
{PERSONIFICATION}
Like Barbara, most of us appreciate gifts that (* SAY *) "it took time and
thought to find me."
[[Text: source]]
If a good gift (* SAYS *) "Thank you for being you," a bad one practically
(* SINGS OUT *) "I don't love you just the way you are." According to Dr.
Berger, "These gifts are often perceived as (* SAYING *) 'with my help you
can improve.'"
[[Text: source]]
Some gifts are so obviously bad-intentioned that the message is hardly
hidden at all. As psychotherapist Linda Barbanel points out, "Gifts
can convey: `I'm mad as hell at you.' That's tough to say out loud,
so the message is delivered instead through a hostile gift."
[[Text: source]]
{MENTAL? (Indexed also in Miscellaneous Mental Metaphors.)}
Dr. Piaget notes that "Some gifts (* SAY *) `I don't think you're worth a lot.'
They're so cheap that they're like leaving a one-cent tip for a waitress."
[[Text: source]]
{MENTAL? (Indexed also in Miscellaneous Mental Metaphors.)}
If only it was possible to turn the clock back, and return to that time when we
were simply seeing each other. ... The (* FUTURE HADN'T APPARENTLY BEEN
HURTLING TOWARDS US *) then.
[NP] (* `I should never have got engaged,' I groaned inwardly;*) that was
when the (* BRAKES HAD BEEN RELEASED.*) Oh, I had wanted to get engaged, but
just that, and no more.
[[Text: source]]
{NB: discourse coherence between the two metaphorical bits.}
"He's not (* DEAD MEAT,*)" says one GOP consultant. "He's just (* LIGHTLY
BROILED.*)"
[[Text: source]]
{note coherence: dead/broiled}
[President Milosovich]
(* PULL[ED] THE RUG --- OR WHAT'S LEFT OF THE RUG *) ---
from under the feet of the Bosnian Serbs.
[Speech: presenter on World At One, BBC Radio 4, U.K., 7jun95]
{NB: enlivening of an idiom or dead metaphor}